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The Alcazar of Seville and Mudejar Architecture

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The Alcazar of Seville and Mudejar Architecture International Center of Medieval Art http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067097 . Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. International Center of Medieval Art is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Gesta. http://www.jstor.org The Alcazar of Seville and Mudejar Architecture D. FAIRCHILD RUGGLES University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Abstract cessive Christian rulers. The palace was built inmany phases by Muslim and Christian patrons (Fig. 1). In its present state, The Seville Alcazar was an Islamic foundation that re it is a confusing mix of richly ornamented courtyards and ceived additions and renovations in the significant fourteenth halls, one style added to another so that the palace can, in century by Alfonso XI and again by Pedro the Cruel. In both some parts, be read like archaeological strata. These halls are cases the changes were realized in a Mudejar style, reflecting es surrounded that are Andalusi the demographic and cultural continuity of Seville and by gardens identifiably although of indeterminate date. Each of the differs in pecially of the artisanal class. But the motivations underlying palace's phases the selection of this style were different for each monarch. date and style: taifa, Almohad, Gothic, Mudejar, late Renais over Alfonso celebrated the triumph of his Christian coalition sance. To some extent this mixture is the natural result of con an Islamic coalition, and commissioning a work of Mudejar struction that went on for five hundred years in which one architecture allowed him to seize and appropriate a subject succeeded the as one decade succeeds Islamic culture in much the same way as he had seized Islamic style naturally other, the next. But there is an of under territory. But Pedro's use of the Mudejar style was less an assumption inevitability tagonistic, for he was advised by Muhammad V of Granada, lying this model that I would like to question, asking instead who was in exile under his protection. Pedro had grown are a or living to what degree such style changes "natural" "auto up in Seville surrounded by Islamic culture. Thus, his decision matic" consequence of the march of time, and to what degree to adopt the style expressed an important aspect of Mudejar reflect conscious shifts in cultural and values. If his own identity that emphasized his Andalusian roots and they political has the sense of transcended religious associations. style meaning?in giving physical expression can we as to human values and identity?then what meaning cribe to the adoption of Islamicate forms and motifs by the Medieval Iberia from the eighth through the fifteenth Christian patron of the Alcazar of Seville in the mid-four century was a crossroads where two powerful cultures met teenth century? and intermingled. Christian and Islamic cultures have been The original Alcazar was built in the tenth century in contraposed in historical literature as well as popular contem an area outside the old Roman walls of Seville. There are no porary description, where differences in religion and cultural remains from this period.4 When al-Andalus fragmented into practices have been emphasized.1 Although since the 1980s multiple princely states (taifas) in the eleventh century, Se many historians following in the footsteps of Am?rico Castro ville became the capital of the richest and most powerful have focused instead on the dynamics of convivencia (coexist state, ruled by the Abbadid dynasty (1023-1091). Seville was ence), the frontier between the Christian north and Islamic an advantageous site for a capital because it was situated on south is still demarcated with a solid line when mapped on the Guadalquivir, the only navigable river in Spain. With paper.2 But as all Mediterraneanists know, the existence of access upstream to Cordoba (the former Umayyad capital and political domains (by no means as sharply defined as maps still a large city in the eleventh and twelfth centuries) as well mean a suggest) does not necessarily cultural barrier. There as downstream to the sea and trade with North Africa and the were plenty of Muslims in the "Christian" kingdoms, plenty Mediterranean, Seville thrived economically and politically. of Christians in Islamic al-Andalus, and minority Jewish com In the Abbadid phase, the Alcazar was expanded westward munities in both. Moreover, theMuslim and Christian commu and the new part was named the Qasr al-Mubarak (Palace of nities themselves consisted of diverse sects, political entities, Good Fortune). This part of the palace survived the subse and ethnic groups.3 This cultural hybridity is reflected in the quent expansions and remodelings and formed a principal architecture and art, from Mozarabic churches like San Miguel element in the axial organization of the later Gothic and de Escalada near Leon, to converted and remodeled mosques Mudejar phases.5 such as Cristo de la Luz (Bib Mardum) in Toledo, toMudejar When the princely states proved too weak to defend them palaces such as the Alcazar of Seville. selves against the Christian kingdoms of Navarre and Leon, The Alcazar of Seville offers an opportunity to study the new, more powerful dynasties from Morocco took charge. The different political circumstances and motivations prompting second of these was the Almohad dynasty (1147-1237) from the adoption of a visibly Islamic style in the patronage of sue Marrakesh, which adopted Seville as its Iberian capital. In this GESTA XLIII/2 ? The International Center of Medieval Art 2004 87 FIGURE 1. Seville, Alcazar, 10th century to present (drawing: author). -i Xi'.t.i.i.i.i, rap. ~s ~* :-<1 -ai?! ? r -%i FIGURE 2. Alcazar, Islamic garden in the Casa de Contrataci?n, early 12th century (photo: author). 88 FIGURE 3. Patio del late llthor 12th Alcazar, Yeso, early century (photo: FIGURE 4. Alcazar, Hall of Justice, ca. 1140-1150 (photo: author). author). phase, several handsome gardens were built in the Alcazar, shields of Castile and Leon as well as those of the Order of with the was which, together outlying gardens, enclosed by the Banda, a Christian order of knights created a few years an extensive wall.6 One of these was the beautiful four-part before the Battle of Salado, making the dynastic identity and with garden deeply sunken quadrants that forms the heart of Castilian patronage affiliations explicit. But the ornamental what is today an office of public works and finances, the program of the hall communicated a different association Casa de Contrataci?n (Fig. 2). Another is the so-called Patio altogether. The walls have a tripartite structure in which del Yeso with its and at two rectangular pool least walls either wide central doorways or blind niches are flanked by preserving their original arches and delicate stucco tracery narrower blind arches. In the center of the chamber there is A now (Fig. 3). third garden, called the Ba?os de Do?a Mar?a a low basin with a jet and a channel from which water flows is known Padilla, archaeologically but buried beneath Gothic toward the garden and its large tank. The fountain's intricate to the vaulting dating mid-thirteenth century.7 In 1248 Se stucco with vegetal (ataurique) motifs and the arrangement ville was conquered Ferdinand III of Castile (d. 1252). His of three arches framed bands of Arabic were by " by inscription Alfonso called "El son, X, Sabio made Seville his capital, clearly drawn from an Islamicate repertoire and would have the inhabited Alcazar, and remodeled it in the Gothic style.8 been read as such by all who visited Alfonso in his throne In the mid-fourteenth century a new style was introduced. room.9 Alfonso XI won a (1312-1350), king of Castile-Leon, had This use of Islamic motifs in non-Muslim settings is called the major victory against Islamic kingdom of Granada at the Mudejar, from the Arabic mudajjan, meaning "domesticated," of Battle Salado in 1340, and to celebrate he built the Hall of as in a subject people. The term was first used in 1859 to de Justice next to the Patio del just Yeso (Fig. 4). This Hall of scribe an artistic style, but it derives from a demographic con Justice was an to antechamber the garden and functioned as dition caused by the Reconquest.10 As Christian rulers won Alfonso's throne room. The chamber walls displayed the larger swathes of territory along the loosely defined frontier 89 bishops adopted the visible signs of Islamic culture in their palaces and treasuries has been discussed by Karl Werck meister and Jerrilynn Dodds, among others, who believe that such appropriations were signs of triumph in which Christian ity expressed its domination over a subjugated al-Andalus.12 This interpretation explains why Christian patrons eagerly adopted Islamic luxury objects and richly colored textiles in such highly charged objects as reliquaries that preserved the remains of Christian martyrs who were killed in al-Andalus for such acts as publicly cursing the Prophet. To use an Islamic silver or ivory box with Arabic inscriptions for the martyr's :S^ ^9?HBBEBHHBHHHI?? relics was a deliberate act of inversion. However, triumpha lism does not explain the phenomenon of the Mudejar style, in which Christian patrons did not simply appropriate and convert existing Islamic objects, but actually commissioned new art in the Islamic style.
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